Free Magic Three of Solatia by Jane Yolen

not know him. Or perhaps the king would have it seem that way.”
    “I do not understand this seeming ,” said Sian, taking her hands in his. “Except that you seem content, and that is all that matters to me.” And he kissed her cheek.
    Then he looked at his daughter sternly. “Still, if your man is as good as you say, he will tell you what all this seeming is about.”
    Sianna looked down. “I dare not ask him anything about it,” she said. “It is the one condition he has laid upon me.”
    “But then what is to be done?”
    “I do not know that,” she replied. “But this I do know. For two nights I have lain as one dead and have not seen the stars. I fear that I have been made to sleep by a potion too powerful to resist. But tonight I shall wear this amulet upon my breast.” She showed the small stone to her father. “I have blessed it with words the seawitch taught me. It shall keep me awake, though I seem to sleep.”
    “Then go with luck, my daughter,” Sian said.
    “I will go with whatever is given me,” she replied.

10. The Power of the Flute
    T HE NIGHT CAME SWIFT and starless. The castle darkened and all within were held in the “little death,” for so the Solatians called sleep. Only in the king’s chamber were four men awake, Blaggard and the guards Bran, Andel, and Rolan.
    The king played a languid piping on his flute, and the men listened as if caught in a spell.
    Scarce the stroke of one had faded than the king nodded to the three. They got up from the seats where they had rested, reluctant and yet eager to be done with the night’s business. Only Blaggard himself seemed at ease.
    “I shall accompany you this time and see that it is done well.”
    Then, silent as shadows, they moved down the long, empty corridor to the wedding-chamber door.
    The door creaked open, but the chamber was silent as a tomb. Sianna seemed as deep asleep as before, and only she knew that the amulet kept her awake.
    The three guards crept to the great canopied bed in the center of the chamber. They stared down at the hollow that mocked their eyes. Blaggard entered behind them and stood by the side of the door, hidden by the shadows and wrapped in some strange dark magic.
    “Now,” whispered Rolan, and the other two flung a sack of dirt they had carried up from the ground below.
    As the dirt splattered upon the bed, Sianna drew in a quick breath, but in the tumult that followed it was never heard. For as soon as the dirt struck the hollow in the bed, a dark and bearded man, beautiful and fierce of body, took form. For the dust had called to dust, and he became fully man.
    In a single leap, the black knight, the man of earth, leapt from the bed and laid about himself with such ferocity that Bran was thrown to the floor and Andel fled to the door. Only Rolan was left to defend himself with arms thrown above his head. Yet strange to tell, once the men had fled, the knight did not follow. He did not seek to press his advantage, but merely stood his ground.
    Seeing this, the three guards wondered if they should charge again. Just as they were readying themselves, the king stepped forward from the door.
    “Hold,” he called, and raised his flute to his lips. As if caught in a dream, all held still. The king began to blow into the flute. A song piped and snaked out of it, a band of dark music that twined round and round the room like a blind serpent seeking its prey. And then it found him, the black knight standing with his arms crossed before him on the marble floor. The dark ribbon of music wound round and round and bound him fast. And when he was fully bound, Blaggard took the flute from his lips and smiled. He walked over to the black knight and said, “Kneel.”
    “I kneel to no man with a heart like yours,” said the knight. “I kneel only through love.”
    “Then die,” said Blaggard, and raised his flute like a sword.
    As he had taken the flute from his lips, Sianna was released from the music’s spell.